


Warm Milk

by TheBlackestFrost



Category: American Gods (TV), American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: F/M, Sexual Tension, Stop along the road, Suicidal thoughts (brief mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 05:35:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21294407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBlackestFrost/pseuds/TheBlackestFrost
Summary: There it is, the strangest sight she's ever seen.He doesn't notice her at first so she watches, unable to reconcile the scene in front of her with literally anything she's seen or done in the last few weeks.Laura discovers she can still be surprised.
Relationships: Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney
Comments: 8
Kudos: 52





	Warm Milk

* * *

There are a lot of things she's walked in on in the last few weeks that have shocked her.

One time they'd walked into a literal stand off between 3 gang leaders that ended with Laura throwing out two and Salim awkwardly patting a third that Sweeney brought to tears.

There was the time they'd walked into the wrong room to see a couple shooting homemade porn (and til the day she died, again, she would never understand why they picked that angle and frankly she didn't want to). 

She's found Salim giggling to legally blonde and walked in on Sweeney clearly about to have a wank (she would be lying if she said she hadn't deliberately interrupted that just to ruin his day, if she couldn't get off she didn't see why others should be allowed to).

But this...this was something else.

They've had to improvise sleeping arrangements, every joint in town full, Salim and Sweeney needing to shower and crash out. After a third failed attempt at accommodation Sweeney is taking a different approach, making her drive down some of the nicer streets in town and growling at her to stop at a house with outside lights on timers and nothing going on inside.

She watches him check the mail box, the back, the fence height. He checks the neighbours' view points and then gives her and Salim a gesture that can only mean "get the fuck on in."

She stashes the car around the corner and the heads around the side gate. 

The place is massive, all concrete and minimalist lines, the sort of pretentious opulence that had once consisted of chandeliers and brocade and now saw people creating monochromatic monoliths with no paintings and a single colour wall.

Still, the place has water and enough bedrooms for all of them with fresh linen. She explores, finding several bathrooms, including one with the biggest bath she's ever seen in her life, a glorious sunken marble thing begging to be filled with bubbles and surrounded by candles and glasses of wine and fucked in until the water and bubbles went everywhere. A tub to sink into and feel sore muscles release and feel clean, so fucking clean.

A far cry from the hot tub at home.

She nearly cries at not being able to use it lest she risk accelerating her rot. She can't cry though, and even if she could, she wouldn't. Instead she uses a wash cloth to skim over herself, removing as much grime as possible.

She rifles through the wardrobe, taking a few shirts that are too long and eyeing off shoes more expensive than her never used college degree. They’re all far too large for her but she tries them on anyway, spinning in a floor length mirror as she looks through expensive dresses and tries to remember what she looked like before her skin was this waxy, this grey.

_Getting dressed up, short skirts and high heels, enjoying the looks and dodging grasping hands until she was good and ready to be grasped. _

If she's honest with herself that side, the one that revelled in being dainty and alluring and enjoyed seeing what men would do with big eyes batted at them and how loud they would groan when goaded into violent intimacy, had been fading long before she died. Replaced by something less lively, darker, a kind of apathetic boredom that was slowly trailing into…something.

_Bug spray and the heat of the tub. Maybe one day she'll just float on down to the bottom._

A clang of metal travels up the stairs. She knows that Salim is making use of a bath (he'd protested weakly at the trespassing before being reminded that seeking out one's paranomal one night stand might be a time to ensure optimal hygiene). Curious, she heads down the stairs, rounding the corner to what she assumes is the kitchen. She thinks of her dead grandmother’s kitchen, of morning coffees and the way the light hit her cup.

_Shadow had been something, someone, less monochromatic than the rest of her world, a dangerous stranger to invite home. He'd loved sharing space, to eat and sleep and fuck and be fulfilled by it. They'd had something, she thinks. So she’d decided they needed to rob a casino, got him sent to prison, and died mid-blow job. _

The kitchen is huge, stone benchtop in the middle surrounded by slick appliances. She’s so deep in her memories it takes her a moment to put the images in front of her together into an actual picture.

There it is, the strangest sight she's ever seen.

He doesn't notice her at first so she watches, unable to reconcile the scene in front of her with literally anything she's seen or done in the last few weeks.

Mad Sweeney is cooking. 

Fucking cooking.

He's left his shirt and jacket over one of the chairs surrounding an oversized square dining table (complete with copper wire lamps with oversized bulbs suspended from the roof). His suspenders are off his shoulders and he’s looking far too at home for someone that size in any kitchen, though at least this place has high ceilings. His undershirt has seen better days but she isn't so dead that she doesn't notice the broad shoulders, the bunch of his forearms as he moves, the flat stomach and sheer size of him.

Shadow was a big unit; this is something else.

_A shuddering, dark little part of her mind asked (completely unbidden) what his hips would feel like pistoning into her, how long the bruises from those hands would last, how deep the ache afterwards._

She ignores the part, focusing instead on the jarring domesticity.

He's chopping, stirring, throwing things together into a deep saucepan and adding salt, the open cupboard doors indicating that their unwitting hosts were still well stocked enough. A few open cans of various vegetables, olive oil, and dried herbs litter the bench. He stops occasionally to pick up a fancy looking kitchen knife, chopping onions and garlic from the pantry, checking for rot and dicing them with the ease of long practice.

She knows he eats. He’ll plow through burgers and other diner junk, order anything hot or rich on the menu. She’s seen him hoe down more candy bars than a body should be able to contain (even a body that size), not to mention the sheer quantity of alcohol he can put away. She’s not surprised that there’s food.

But seeing him preparing food is something else, and she’s struck by the reality of a life lived outside of the insanity of the last few weeks, of his age, of the likelihood that he has done this more often than she’s taken breaths in her whole life.

He’s moving with the kind of competent ease that is borne of repetition, of having done something too many times to count, of being completely settled in a body and all its actions.

His expression, usually angry, tense, edgy, ready to fight, occasionally guilty...is calm. 

Peaceful even. 

_Fuck, she hates him._

Watching him stirring, adding, testing, practiced movements suggesting this was, at some point, a norm, is hypnotic. She feels sluggish (or relaxed, she can't tell the difference) and her mind plays tricks on her. 

_She imagines the people who live aaaahere, imagines a man and a woman standing like this, a glass of wine in the woman's hand as she watches him pulling together their meal. Chatting quietly or enjoying comfortable silence, eating over a dining table, smiling knowingly, being hauled up to the bench and fucked hard, forgetting the dishes to bolt upstairs to the tub._

_Laura doesn’t miss domesticity, not if she’s honest with herself. But food, taste, smell, sex…she feels the absence like an ever growing void._

She is still in the doorway when she sees him glance up and straighten, eyes running over her (the stolen shirt is so long she's belted it, the fabric skimming her knees, her jeans in the dryer). She’s left her boots off and is well aware that this is the least he’s seen her in and wonders what he’s thinking (why, why the fuck does she care). He stares at her a beat longer, eyes dark, knife in his still hand, and it's a strange enough scene (something out of another life) that she steps in and breaks it.

"You're Gordon Ramsey now?"

He sniffs, returning to his chopping, voice hard and bored.

"I'm hungry. Gotta get something other than truck stop shite, Dead Wife."

She has no sense of smell anymore, it could very well smell like river sludge (or worse, her), but then in comes Salim inhaling deeply, grinning widely and sweetly.

"Ah, that smells amazing."

Sweeney grunts, "be better with lamb, ain't no fuckin' meat in the fridge."

Salim's calm smile doesn't falter, he just picks up the plate Sweeney has filled with some sort of stew and a flat pancake thing (potato, she thinks). They head to the table and she follows as if in a trance, her brain apparently unable to reconcile the oversized brute with the oversized brute who can cook and apparently makes enough for others.

His brand of dick head is truly unique.

He's talkative tonight, willing to answer things in an offhand way that still makes her eyes pop. "Plenty o' yoghurt, fish so fresh it's still fuckin' wigglin', baked in the mounds."

"Much farming?"

Sweeney shovelled in more stew, replying with his mouth full. "Around the time I left, sure. Grains got agro'd first, potatos were later too, those English bastards and their fuckin' restrictions meant lean years."

Salim was clearly taking it in stride, and she guessed being fucked by a jinn would make anyone more open minded. She is deeply disturbed by the casual conversation, so different from declarations of being a leprechaun or king or whatever else, such mundanity and still...he's talked through good differences over centuries. 

She sips at a glass of water, which does nothing to ease her thirst, and Salim looks at her with eyes so kind she wants to scratch them out.

“Do you feel hungry at all?”

She lights a cigarette, about to reply, when he cuts over the top of her.

“Course she does, gotta feed the maggots something so they eat her slower.”

She smiles sweetly, knowing it still makes her eyes twinkle. “I think they’d rather starve than eat your cooking.”

His grin is vicious, “maybe they’re after the last thing that hit your belly…what was it again?”

“Cum, lots of it.”

Salim is looking deeply uncomfortable but she’s happy to cut through this bullshit family dinner table and enjoys the way the leprechaun’s eyes pop.

He recovers quickly, “nice to know you swallow, Dead Wife.”

She stands, ashing her cigarette on the marble table and throwing him another smile made of sunshine and poison. 

“Ginger Minge, I can fuckin’ gargle.”

She leaves the kitchen, delighted at the choking sounds coming from behind her and the heavy whump as Salim tries to help Sweeney dislodge whatever he’s got stuck in his throat.

Later than night, long after Salim has gone to bed, long after she's grown bored of not sleeping and tired of staring at her body (was that looser than yesterday? were her eyes the tiniest bit filmy?), she heads back to the kitchen.

She can hear him in there again, a quieter movement, though she suspects it’s more the late hour than any respect for his travel companions.

She watches him root through the cupboards, his eyes lighting up at something discovered, pulling out a jar of honey and a drizzling a heavy spoonful into a saucepan is set at a slow simmer, filled with white liquid.

He picks through a spice rack, reading labels carefully, pulling down cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. He shakes them in, whisking, the milk foaming with the heat and absorbing the spices before he pours the whole thing into an oversized mug. 

His hair is wet now, messy and strange, and the sharp flash of jealousy makes her want to scream. She'd give anything for a shower without the threat of falling to pieces. 

Maybe that's why she lashes out as he moves to the back patio, mug in one hand and cigarette in another. She watches him for a moment as he stares into the dark garden, sipping occasionally and closing his eyes as if savouring every second.

"Warm milk before bedtime? What are you, five?"

She's never had it, it hadn't been part of her upbringing (ignoring her father's drunken ranting and violence, then watching her mother remarry and play suzie homemaker hadn't included that sort of shit), but she's seen it on television enough to mock him. 

He doesn't jerk at her voice, suggesting he was enjoying his reverie but not lost in that swirling madness she sometimes sees when he stares far away, and for a moment she feels something close over her chest and wonders if its guilt. 

“People used to leave me milk. Every now and then it’d have a dash o’ this or that in it.”

He inhales deeply and if there’s something melancholy in his voice it doesn’t outweigh the small, genuine smile that twitches his lips.

She stays standing. “And you’d…what? Bring them luck? Tell their fortune? What did you do for your little believers?”

He does that thing where he looks out ahead, frustrated and tired and maybe the tiniest bit disappointed, and doesn’t respond for a long while. When he does it’s quiet.

“Kept an eye out.”

She doesn’t roll her eyes, and he turns to look at her. She wonders what it must be like to have someone part with something for you, ask things of you with fervour or belief. She’d hated the responsibilities in life, the idea that someone put it on her to make them happy or satisfied, but now she’s not so sure. He seems to miss it. 

Maybe it’s not so much a burden as a gift, an opportunity.

His eyes aren’t moving from hers, and she finds this kind of intense focus, with its desperate need to be understood, far more difficult than the wolfish raking of his eyes over her body. She searches for venom.

“Well a shit hot job you must’ve done, here making your own milk.”

He doesn't need bite back, not tonight, not with his belly full and his body clean and a cigarette in hand and his memories warming him. In fact the look he shoots her is pity and she's so furious she can feel her face cloud and he glances down at his drink.

He doesn't need to bite, but he knows the rules here. 

"Someone should drink it, given it'd just rot you even more, Dead Wife."

He takes a drag of his cigarette and looks back up at her, eyes narrowed and his smile mean. "Way you were lookin' earlier a body'd think that husband o' yours never cooked for you."

He doesn't ask it as a question and she bristles further at the assumption.

"He cooked plenty. Most nights. Sometimes I did. That's a relationship."

_It's not that he didn't cook - it's that she never thought it was something worth noticing. _

He's watching her intensely and nods to himself, "aye, and tell me how often you watched him when you were alive?"

_Never._

"Fuck you."

He drains his mug and stands, grinning down at her while the inside lights cast shadows over his face. His nose is too big and his eyes are too sharp and that fucking red beard is too bright and everything about him is too alive.

He leans close and his breath is warm and she knows he'd taste like honey and spices and cigarettes if she was fucking alive and for a second she feels her eyes wanting to close and to _be that. _

_To shower and dress up and eat and drink and fuck and to taste the cigarettes and everything else._

He sees it and she knows he sees it and the grin gets sharper and more wolfish and smug and she's so so so fucking angry at the rogue thought that she'll do anything to lash out and her hand hits porcelain.

The mug empty mug slams down, smashing to the ground, and the sound is echoed and enhanced by this stupid pretentious rock wall of a garden.

The lights next door flicker on and she hears voices and closes her eyes and groans.

He rolls his eyes as he stubs out his cigarette, heading inside to wake Salim and get them all bailed out the door before the rich folk cops are called, throwing his words over his shoulder.

"You're an ungrateful bitch, you know that?"

Soon enough they're back in the car with her driving and both men holding back frustration at the loss of a good night's sleep in a real bed in favour of sprawling in the cramped quarters. Salim is in the passenger seat, snoring quietly, and she can hear the rumble of Sweeney where he’s sprawled in the back.

She lights a cigarette, inhales, watches the road ahead.

And she wonders on what it means to believe.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
